indigent

• POS: Adjective, Noun
• HYPHEN: in=di=gent

CIDE DICTIONARY

indigent, a. [L. indigent, L. indigens, p. p. of indigere to stand in need of, fr. OL. indu (fr. in- in) + L. egere to be needy, to need.].

•  Wanting; void; free; destitute; -- used with of.  Bacon.  [1913 Webster]
•  Destitute of property or means of comfortable subsistence; needy; poor; in want; necessitous.  [1913 Webster]

  "Indigent faint souls past corporal toil."  [1913 Webster]

  "Charity consists in relieving the indigent."  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

indigent, adj. needy, poor.

Derivative

indigence n.

Etymology

ME f. OF f. LL indigere f. indi- = IN-(2) + egere need

THESAURUS

indigent

almsman, almswoman, bankrupt, beggar, beggared, beggarly, bereaved, bereft, casual, charity case, deprived, destitute, disadvantaged, down-and-out, down-and-outer, flat broke, fleeced, ghettoized, hard up, hardcase, impecunious, impoverished, in need, in rags, in want, mendicant, necessitous, needy, on relief, out at elbows, pauper, pauperized, penniless, penniless man, penurious, poor, poor devil, poor man, poorling, poverty-stricken, short, starveling, strapped, stripped, underprivileged, welfare client

ROGET THESAURUS

indigent

Poverty

N poverty, indigence, penury, pauperism, destitution, want, need, neediness, lack, necessity, privation, distress, difficulties, wolf at the door, bad circumstances, poor circumstances, need circumstances, embarrassed circumstances, reduced circumstances, straightened circumstances, slender means, narrow means, straits, hand to mouth existence, res angusta domi, low water, impecuniosity, beggary, mendicancy, mendicity, broken fortune, loss of fortune, insolvency, empty pocket, empty purse, light purse, beggarly account of empty boxes, poor man, pauper, mendicant, mumper, beggar, starveling, pauvre diable, fakir, schnorrer, homeless person, poor, indigent, poverty-stricken, badly off, poorly off, ill off, poor as a rat, poor as a church mouse, poor as a Job, fortuneless, dowerless, moneyless, penniless, unportioned, unmoneyed, impecunious, out of money, out of cash, short of money, short of cash, without a rap, not worth a rap, qui n'a pas le sou, out of pocket, hard up, out at elbows, out at heels, seedy, bare-footed, beggarly, beggared, destitute, fleeced, stripped, bereft, bereaved, reduced, homeless, in want, needy, necessitous, distressed, pinched, straitened, put to one's shifts, put to one's last shifts, unable to keep the wolf from the door, unable to make both ends meet, embarrassed, under hatches, involved, insolvent, in forma pauperis, zonam perdidit, a penniless lass wi' a lang pedigree, a pobreza no hay verguenza, he that is down can fall no lower, poca roba poco pensiero, steeped, in poverty to the very lips, the short and simple annals of the poor.